S. Elizabeth - The Art of Darkness: A Treasury of the Morbid, Melancholic and Macabre

Umschlag der Kunst und Literaturzeitschrift 'Jugend (Cover of the art and literary magazine 'Youth'), Ausgabe Nr. 15/1896, Paul Wilhelm Keller-Reutlingen, 1896, oil on canvas.

We should think of this human darkness as a spectrum as well, with many elements along its continuum worth exploring. James Thurber wrote that there are two types of light: the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures, and I cant help but think of the obscuring glare here in terms of the phony light of that good vibes only doctrine. Perhaps we can instead confront our darkness straight on and head into it with the illuminating glow of courageous curiosity to guide us through our explorations. And who better to lift the lantern along our pathway than the artists who have engaged with these impulses and have painted canvases awash in unpalatable feelings across the centuries? While the themes and imagery presented in many of these works can be difficult to confront, their beauty and truth lies in laying bare the universality of our struggles and allowing us a bit of distance to sit with something outside ourselves that we also recognize internally. Who hasnt gazed upon the infernal phantasmagoric chaos in the third panel of Hieronymus Boschs The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych and seen their inner pandemonium mirrored right back at them? Surely, its not just me!

Within the following chapters is a gallery of artworks reflecting these anxieties and aversions, tensions and terrors that transcend time and which have long plagued our psyches a Stygian kaleidoscope through which tumble our inner demons and our deepest, darkest feelings. Among the push and pull of these seductive and repellent images, well traverse the realm of dreams and nightmares, observe the visual culture of struggle and violence, and examine our ingrained and inherent fear of death and decay. And in indulging our fears for a time, in reconciling with our dark halves, our human experience will become closer to whole.

Its important to note that while many of these works are visually stunning and quite beautiful, they also have themes that are considered disturbing or shocking. It is never my intent to share horror for horrors sake but consider this a content warning: these works run the gamut of subject matter and motifs that might provoke distress and discomfort. Please be forewarned and treat yourself gently when perusing these pages.

Once more for the people in the back! Denial of our darkness leads us to fear it. Lets create a connection with our shadows instead, and revel in all the inspiration and wonder we may find there.

I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do...

FRIDA KAHLO

A rt enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time, wrote modern monk and man of contradictions Thomas Merton, a prolific poet, essayist and artist. Its no joke that creative people spend a lot of time in their heads. And its easy to get lost in there.

If you have spent any time with a highly creative person, you have probably experienced moments when it seems like they live in a totally different world from yours, a completely different plane of reality. These dreamers are lifes observers and explorers, asking the big questions, discovering the patterns, connecting all the dots. They focus intensely, feel deeply, their minds and hearts on fire, seemingly on the edge of mania and melancholy, exhilaration and existential despair, all at once. A feverish, fraught, frenetic existence.

History is full of long-suffering creative geniuses who have a burning need to express themselves through the medium of their art. The list is so extensive that great art has almost become synonymous with pain. If popular culture is to be believed, in order to be truly creative, one must be touched by mental affliction.

The Scream, Edvard Munch, 1893, oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard.

Van Gogh painted The Starry Night (1889) while battling anxiety and addiction. Frida Kahlo obsessively painted her physical and emotional pain. Edvard Munch wrote that sickness, madness and death were the black angels that guarded my crib, and he even came to be diagnosed with neurasthenia, a clinical condition associated with hysteria and hypochondria. Aristotle expressed this phenomenon when he claimed that no great genius has ever existed without a strain of madness.